Dungeon Master
Posts: 1531
Joined: Saturday, 5th March 2011, 06:29
Sunday, 6th March 2011, 00:06
Spellcaster backgrounds
I've been having some thoughts about the various magic user backgrounds. These follow on from my own playing and a number of other threads here so I thought I'd sum up my own ideas in one place.
There are really quite a lot of magic backgrounds but a lot of them had only very minor differentiations; usually just down to which starting book they get, and an initial boost in the relevant skill(s). Since one design goal is to reduce the overall number of backgrounds, I think there are some very easy ways to clear all this up a bit.
Additionally there are some things that don't quite make sense to me as I've been observing the recent changes to some of these backgrounds.
1. Have just one background for Elementalist. You can then choose Earth / Air / Fire / Water as a sub option, the same way it works for many other backgrounds who then choose their weapon speciality.
2. Conjurors; why are there only Fire/Earth and Ice/Air options? Why not Fire/Air and Earth/Ice? Air is an extremely useful school due to Repel/Deflect, Swiftness/Haste etc. and it'd be nice to have a Fire conjuror who was suited to going down that route.
3. Warper/Enchanter/Summoner/Necromancer/Transmuter/Venom Mage. Really these are all "Magic Specialists" who start fitted out for a particular spell school. Why not condense all of these into a single background, then give a choice of the school in which you want to specialise. It's pretty confusing the order in which they're littered around the menu - i.e. Warper appears before Wizard, Venom Mage after the Elementalists. Further on this, the Elementalists are really just specialists in a particular elemental school, however I think the concept of Elementalist deserves to be kept separate.
4. Wizards. These are supposed to be "magic generalists". And yet they start with two Air school spells (Repel, Mephitic) and one Fire spell (Conjure Flame). So most of my wizards very quickly become Fire/Air specialists and will struggle to learn any Earth or Ice due to them being in conflict with Fire and Air. This makes them seem instead of as a generalist, more like the Fire/Air conjuror I mentioned above. Additionally, wizards are seriously lacking a decent attack spell above Magic Dart. I end up using a Conjure Flame / Mephitic Cloud combo to dispatch any tough monsters; which is fun, but again is forcing me down the Fire / Air route.
Further to this, I'm kind of thinking it would be a good idea if Wizards started with Sif Muna. This makes sense from a realism perspective, since Sif is supposed to be the "magic generalist" God. You could argue that either Sif or Wizard would require a nerf in this case; but I argue that Sif isn't necessarily that great as it stands - all the boons are attainable via other means one way or another as the game progresses, and if I'm unlucky enough to not find an early altar or Temple (and even worse, if there's no Sif altar in the temple - doesn't happen a lot but it's really annoying) then I have basically no change of getting the required piety for any spellbook gifts by the time I need them and/or decent ones start just showing up anyway. From a number of other comments and my own experience, it seems Vehumet is just way better in nearly all games. So Wizard/Sif is currently in need of some kind of buff since it should be the default choice if you want an all-out magic character. If not as a starting God, then maybe Sif needs a few other perks once you get to 4, 5 or 6 piety?
Just to elaborate on Sif's perks;
- MP channeling. There are crystal balls, staves, Vehument's (and other Gods') MP-for-kills, sublimation, etc.
- Miscast protection. A fairly minor bonus if you train your skills up well.
- Forgetting spells. By managing my spell progression carefully I should be able to make do with scrolls and maybe Selective Amnesia. This basically just gives you a small extra spell slot at the expense of piety, which is really hard to gain at high skill levels.
- Books. Sif mostly just gives me total rubbish even once I get enough piety to receive gifts. I find most of the spells I need just lying around the dungeon and in shops before Sif gives me them, for the most part.
Regarding piety gain; it seems to get really hard to earn piety once you've raised your skills significantly. The wiki indicates this is because it takes more XP at higher levels. Basically, this is penalising players for managing to train their skills up early, or if they don't find a Sif altar soon enough. Perhaps there should be a piety bonus the moment you start worshipping, relative to how much XP you've put into your spell skills so far (perhaps divided by how many turns you've been in the dungeon, to keep it balanced).
Some ideas for better bonuses could be;
- Being able to request which skill school you'd like a book for, or even being able to ask for specific spells from time to time, even just once at a certain piety level.
- Awarding extra spell slots / points.
- Allowing you to redistribute XP between your spell skills, akin to Ashenzari.
- Occasionally gifting otherwise unobtainable artefacts; special staves, wizard hats, robes, etc.
Well, this is just a summary of a number of possibilities I've thought of, I'm certain there are reasons against many of them!
There are really quite a lot of magic backgrounds but a lot of them had only very minor differentiations; usually just down to which starting book they get, and an initial boost in the relevant skill(s). Since one design goal is to reduce the overall number of backgrounds, I think there are some very easy ways to clear all this up a bit.
Additionally there are some things that don't quite make sense to me as I've been observing the recent changes to some of these backgrounds.
1. Have just one background for Elementalist. You can then choose Earth / Air / Fire / Water as a sub option, the same way it works for many other backgrounds who then choose their weapon speciality.
2. Conjurors; why are there only Fire/Earth and Ice/Air options? Why not Fire/Air and Earth/Ice? Air is an extremely useful school due to Repel/Deflect, Swiftness/Haste etc. and it'd be nice to have a Fire conjuror who was suited to going down that route.
3. Warper/Enchanter/Summoner/Necromancer/Transmuter/Venom Mage. Really these are all "Magic Specialists" who start fitted out for a particular spell school. Why not condense all of these into a single background, then give a choice of the school in which you want to specialise. It's pretty confusing the order in which they're littered around the menu - i.e. Warper appears before Wizard, Venom Mage after the Elementalists. Further on this, the Elementalists are really just specialists in a particular elemental school, however I think the concept of Elementalist deserves to be kept separate.
4. Wizards. These are supposed to be "magic generalists". And yet they start with two Air school spells (Repel, Mephitic) and one Fire spell (Conjure Flame). So most of my wizards very quickly become Fire/Air specialists and will struggle to learn any Earth or Ice due to them being in conflict with Fire and Air. This makes them seem instead of as a generalist, more like the Fire/Air conjuror I mentioned above. Additionally, wizards are seriously lacking a decent attack spell above Magic Dart. I end up using a Conjure Flame / Mephitic Cloud combo to dispatch any tough monsters; which is fun, but again is forcing me down the Fire / Air route.
Further to this, I'm kind of thinking it would be a good idea if Wizards started with Sif Muna. This makes sense from a realism perspective, since Sif is supposed to be the "magic generalist" God. You could argue that either Sif or Wizard would require a nerf in this case; but I argue that Sif isn't necessarily that great as it stands - all the boons are attainable via other means one way or another as the game progresses, and if I'm unlucky enough to not find an early altar or Temple (and even worse, if there's no Sif altar in the temple - doesn't happen a lot but it's really annoying) then I have basically no change of getting the required piety for any spellbook gifts by the time I need them and/or decent ones start just showing up anyway. From a number of other comments and my own experience, it seems Vehumet is just way better in nearly all games. So Wizard/Sif is currently in need of some kind of buff since it should be the default choice if you want an all-out magic character. If not as a starting God, then maybe Sif needs a few other perks once you get to 4, 5 or 6 piety?
Just to elaborate on Sif's perks;
- MP channeling. There are crystal balls, staves, Vehument's (and other Gods') MP-for-kills, sublimation, etc.
- Miscast protection. A fairly minor bonus if you train your skills up well.
- Forgetting spells. By managing my spell progression carefully I should be able to make do with scrolls and maybe Selective Amnesia. This basically just gives you a small extra spell slot at the expense of piety, which is really hard to gain at high skill levels.
- Books. Sif mostly just gives me total rubbish even once I get enough piety to receive gifts. I find most of the spells I need just lying around the dungeon and in shops before Sif gives me them, for the most part.
Regarding piety gain; it seems to get really hard to earn piety once you've raised your skills significantly. The wiki indicates this is because it takes more XP at higher levels. Basically, this is penalising players for managing to train their skills up early, or if they don't find a Sif altar soon enough. Perhaps there should be a piety bonus the moment you start worshipping, relative to how much XP you've put into your spell skills so far (perhaps divided by how many turns you've been in the dungeon, to keep it balanced).
Some ideas for better bonuses could be;
- Being able to request which skill school you'd like a book for, or even being able to ask for specific spells from time to time, even just once at a certain piety level.
- Awarding extra spell slots / points.
- Allowing you to redistribute XP between your spell skills, akin to Ashenzari.
- Occasionally gifting otherwise unobtainable artefacts; special staves, wizard hats, robes, etc.
Well, this is just a summary of a number of possibilities I've thought of, I'm certain there are reasons against many of them!
).
